• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair May 23, 2023
Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions May 23, 2023
Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40 May 23, 2023
PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell May 23, 2023
Tokyo Residents Rally to Protect Trees, Stop Skyscrapers in Iconic Urban Park May 21, 2023
Next
Prev

Federal Orphan Wells Fund Replaced Money Fossils Were Already Spending: Report

July 11, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
Full Story: The Canadian Press @CdnPressNewsz
Primary Author: Bob Weber @row1960

abandoned oil well

Hillebrand Steve, USFWS/Pixnio

4
SHARES
 

Much of the federal subsidy that has helped clean up abandoned oil wells in Alberta may have simply replaced money that fossil companies would have spent anyway, according to a new analysis.

That means the public is likely paying for private companies’ pollution, says the report issued last week by Oxfam Canada, the Parkland Institute, and the Corporate Mapping Project.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

“It’s hard to say because the data is so limited,” said lead author Megan Egler. “But what I did find is highly, highly suggestive that this funding simply was just replacing the money that would have otherwise been spent by these oil and gas producers.”

Last spring, the federal government announced C$1.7 billion for the cleanup of unreclaimed oil and gas wells in Canada, a move that one veteran climate campaigner called “a major turning point”. Most of that money—$1 billion—went to Alberta, where the largest problem exists. The province’s United Conservative government administered the funding.

Egler found that in 2019, Alberta’s energy industry spent about $340 million on remediation as part of the province’s area-based closure program, which represents about 70% of Alberta’s cleanup activity. The following year, after the start of the federal funding, fossils spent $363 million.

“I started looking at the spending in past years and it was more or less the same,” Egler said.

Much company-funded remediation actually ended after the announcement of the federal program, she added. “A lot of these companies actually stopped all their closure work.”

Egler said her research also raised questions about which companies received the funding. Almost one-quarter of the $800 million distributed so far went to just five companies, she said.

One of them, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, got more than $100 million. CNRL is a profitable company that recently beat analysts’ revenue and dividend forecasts.

Egler notes that funding was not distributed on the basis of which wells had been unreclaimed the longest or posed the greatest environmental threat. Rather, the first two funding periods were aimed at producers that could not afford the cleanup or were defaulting on landowner lease payments.

But because Alberta would have already been likely to pick up the tab in those circumstances, she said the federal funding just transferred dollars from one government to another.

“The cleanup of these sites relieves both the defaulting owners and the government from paying compensation to landowners,” says the report.

The program does seem close to meeting Alberta’s job targets, with more than 1,700 jobs funded so far.

But Egler said there’s no way to know if those jobs would have existed anyway—and as job creation goes, they were expensive: each of them took almost $190,000 in subsidies, $41,000 more per job than similar work done by the province’s Orphan Well Association.

“There has been no clear explanation from the government of Alberta why the public dollars to create one job are higher,” the report states. 

Nor was the program measured for its contribution to Canada’s climate goals. Unremediated oil and gas wells are a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the report contained inaccuracies, but didn’t say what they were. “The report…fails to reflect the significant progress made by Alberta’s government on addressing a number of issues it identifies,” the former pipeline executive told CP in an email.

“We are supporting the economic recovery by making use of Alberta’s specialized oil and gas labour force at a time when they are in need of work.”

Savage said the government works with industry and Indigenous groups to continuously improve the program. But Egler said her report raises questions about the program that aren’t being answered.

“One billion dollars cleaning up wells and providing employment—there’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. But “we could have had a program that spent the money better. It just ended up being a subsidy for oil and gas producers.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2021.

Continue Reading



in Canada, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Energy Subsidies, Fossil Fuels, Health & Safety, Jobs & Training, Jurisdictions, Methane, Oil & Gas, Sub-National Governments, Tar Sands / Oil Sands

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Arctic Circle/flickr
COP Conferences

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
346
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr
Climate Impacts & Adaptation

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
211
Jon Sullivan/flickr
Clean Electricity Grid

Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions

May 23, 2023
836

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.5k
Activités culturelles UdeM/Flickr

Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40

May 23, 2023
153
University of Oxford Press Office/flickr

PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell

May 23, 2023
384
McDonald's/flickr

McDonald’s Failing to Follow Through on Climate Promises, Critics Say

December 17, 2021
1.4k
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions

May 23, 2023
836
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
211

Recent Posts

Arctic Circle/flickr

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
346
Andrés Nieto Porras/wikimedia commons

‘Carbon Neutral’, ‘Net-Zero’ Claims Face Global Greenwash Crackdown

May 23, 2023
188
peellden/Wikimedia Commons

Scientists Sound Alarm on Methane Emissions, Habitat Hazards at U.S. Hydro Dams

May 23, 2023
143
nakashi/flickr

Tokyo Residents Rally to Protect Trees, Stop Skyscrapers in Iconic Urban Park

May 21, 2023
468
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/unrecognizable-from-the-original-design-suburban-renovations-disprove-cookie-cutter-stereotype

Embrace Suburbs, Exurbs in Climate Planning, Researchers Urge Cities

May 21, 2023
45
Trocker767/wikimedia commons

Renewable-Powered Greenhouse Brings Fresh Produce Bounty to Gjoa Haven Inuit

May 21, 2023
55
Next Post
Government of Alberta/flickr

University of Calgary Suspends Admissions for Oil and Gas Engineering Program

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}